Walking Up Hua Shan

Hua Shan in Shaanxi province is one of the most prominent members on a long list of “Sacred Mountains” in China. Finally in October 2015, 21 years after I first became aware of this list, I got a chance to scale Hua Shan.

This was the plan:

day 1: 35 minutes bullet train from Xi’an to HuaShan, shuttle bus to the starting point, an estimated five hours hike up to the North Peak, find a place to sleep and eat. Enjoy my 10th summit in China (in case you are interested in the details, click HERE).

day 2: get up early, walk up to the East and South Peak, enjoy sunrise, a knee-friendly cable-car downhill and back to Xi’an for the quasi mandatory dinner buffet orgy.

This is what happened:

day 1: in less than two hours we reached the North Peak. During a short rest, I jokingly propose to speed up the climbing, i.e. try to reach South Peak today, take the cable car down and back to Xi’an by train tonight. Surprisingly (or maybe not…) my hiking mates agree without much ado. This spontaneously devised plan B gets executed well: around 20:30 we are safely back in Xi’an.

day 2: a leisurely stroll through the Muslim Quarters of Xi’an with endless food tasting and shopping opportunities and – of course – the sumptuous dinner buffet (Hilton Xi’an – highly recommended).

What’s next ? Three Taoism-related mountains in China remain to be experienced, let’s see whether another twentyone years will pass to completion.

my Youtube channel has a short video (click on the logo and set the player to 1080p HD)

The pictures in the gallery show the journey from the main entrance all the way up to the South Peak and down to the exit gate with a little help of a cable car.